Notes On Sublebrity
Towards a contemporary understanding of fame
by Ed Halter
When any of today's dime-a-dozen cultural pundits mention fame or celebrity, they predictably invoke Andy Warhol's overly well-known
epigram, "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."
What is seldom touched upon, however, is the fact that Warhol's old saw
is clearly outmoded, having come to pass somewhere around 1994.
Nowadays, the forms of entertainment media have multiplied so rapidly that
new celebrities of varying half-lives are created constantly.
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| Rachael Leigh Cook |
As a result, the achievement of stardom has become ridiculously easy.
Gone are the days when the laurels of public acclaim were reserved for the heroic and esteemed. In our Jerry-Springerized age, all you need to do is start your own 'zine, stick a yam up your ass with government funding, or murder your six-year-old beauty queen daughter and suddenly
you're being name-dropped on "The Gossip Show." With the rise of the Internet, the personal computer has virtually been transformed into a fame vending machine. Go ask Jenni,
Sean Patrick or
RZRaceBoy if you don't believe us. Or better yet, witness the cultish devotion lavished
on such relatively marginal figures as Christian Bale,
Olivia Newton-John and
Rachael Leigh Cook, and marvel at the new forms of fan societies that the use of Daddy's Internet account hath wrought.
Given this rapid democratization of fame, can the term "celebrity" serve the purposes of entertainment journalism any longer? Can we, in good faith, pretend that Tom Cruise, Madonna and Jodie Foster exist in the same phenomenological stratum as Joey Buttafuoco,
Harry Knowles and Lili Taylor?
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| Christian Bale |
Clearly, for those of us who care deeply about showbiz chitchat, the answer is no. Therefore, in the interest of conversational clarity and sociological preciseness, I hereby convey upon the world a new category of fame: the sublebrity.
The sublebrity could be an up-and-coming, or a has-been, or, for that matter, a never-really-ever-was. The sublebrity may be a "cult star", or an underground figure known only to
those in-the-know, a "subcultural celebrity." Many sublebrities have been engendered by the explosion of new media like 'zines, websites, trash talk shows and backwater cable channels. Unlike the poor celebrity, whose entire existence is controlled, monitored and ruled by fame, sublebrities live comfortably with their manageable amount of fame.
We have become accustomed to the small press, the specialty label and the microbrew -- why not a new understanding of our small stars, our specialty celebs, and the micro-famous? I have developed the notion of the sublebrity from working in the twilight world of underground film, where the gaggle of subterranean superstars could simply not be understood by
any other taxonomy. The term gained further currency when I began advising a friend of mine to use it in the promotion of her indie film, which features a former '70s sitcom star, a certain '80s MTV VJ, a local tabloid journalist, a notorious East Village lunatic, and the surviving half of Milli Vanilli -- in short, an almost allegorical llustration of sublebrity's many faces.
While the alchemic law we might call Warhol's Lemma dictates that the logic of fame is operable on all levels, the life of the sublebrity differs greatly in quality from that of the celebrity. The sublebrity, for example, does not need to devote as much concern to the possibility that they may be brutally murdered by a psychotic stalker, have a President shot in their honor, or get their after-dinner plans ruined by a cadre of overzealous, motorbiked paparazzi. If a sublebrity is convicted of a crime, he will be spared the ignominy of serving out his sentence in the form of a public service announcement. A sublebrity, if she so wishes, can selectively cultivate a classy, in-the-know type following. Conversely, the unfortunate celebrity has no control over
who the fickle finger of fame will point his way. Without warning, a given fanbase may shift suddenly from chic urbanites ages 18-30 to squealing suburban 'tweens ages 10-12. In short, sublebrity status is
inherently cooler.
Yes this all makes sense, you may be saying to yourself, but what does this have to do with gaydom?
It is because of my unwavering loyalty to my Velvet Mafia familia that I have chosen PlanetOut's PopcornQ as my forum in which to go public with this vital new term. Heed my warning, O lavender brethren and sistren! Understanding of sublebrity is crucial to the survival of homosexual dominance in the increasingly important sphere of gossip-mongering, rumor-spreading and star-fucking. In today's rapidly changing world, there are both openly gay celebrities and gay sublebrities, though for every Ellen Degeneres or Scott Thompson, there are probably hundreds of David Drakes and Aileen Wuornoses.
Who knows -- perhaps you too are a sublebrity!
Get yourself on over to the
Sublebrity Message Board and tell us about your favorite sublebrities!
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